For spring celebrations, a succulent cake is baked from the season’s delicacy.
The rhubarb cake is decorated with strawberries and white chocolate. Roni Lehti
The delicacy of early summer is rhubarb. The refined taste of rhubarb is perfect as an ingredient for a graduation cake – and besides, it grows in many yards. Rhubarb makes a succulent and attractive cake.
Here’s the chef Risto Mikkolan take on rhubarb cake. Or one of them, because Mikkola likes to bake with this early summer sour vegetable.
– Rhubarb is really sour, but as soon as you add sugar, it turns into a symphony in your mouth, Mikkola writes.
Mikkola’s rhubarb pie is downright cake-like, because it is baked in a round loose-bottomed pan. The pie will be really juicy and moist.
– This cake is so rich that even a small piece blows up the taste palette.
Mikkola reminds that rhubarb used in cakes, pies and jams should be peeled so that the end result does not turn out to be sticks.
Tightly packed, the cake can be stored in the refrigerator. Its taste only gets better if it is allowed to brew for a couple of days. For the party, the cake is spectacularly decorated with white chocolate and strawberries.
A bubbly drink is perfect for rhubarb cake. Roni Lehti
Collected rhubarb should be eaten immediately. If you want to preserve rhubarb, it must be stored at 0–1 degrees, which prevents water from evaporating. If preserved in this way, rhubarb will last for about 2–3 weeks.
Remember that only the stems of rhubarb are eaten. The leaves are poisonous and should not be used for cooking or as food bases on table settings.
Although the rhubarb season starts in May, it lasts throughout the summer. The last stems can still hang on the autumn ears.
Rhubarb cake
26 cm springform pan
250 g of flour
2 tablespoons of baking powder
½ tsp salt
60 g of melted butter
60 g rapeseed oil
100 g of brown sugar
50 g of sugar
200 g cream cheese
the seeds of half a vanilla pod
300 g of rhubarb
1. Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.
2. In another bowl, beat the melted butter, vanilla seeds, oil and sugars until smooth. Mix ¾ of the dry ingredients with the liquids.
3. Roll the rhubarb in the remaining dry ingredients. Now mix everything together.
4. Line the bottom of the cake pan with baking paper and put the dough in the pan, crumble crumble on top and bake for 45 minutes. Test with a stick for doneness. Take the cake out of the oven, let it cool and remove from the pan.
Crumble
1 dl wheat flour
6 tablespoons of brown sugar
50 g of butter
a pinch of salt
1. Mix all the crumble ingredients together and put in the fridge.
2. Heat the oven to 160 degrees. Peel the rhubarb and cut them into pieces about 1 cm in size.
Jammed rhubarb
200 g of rhubarb
100 g of water
50 g apple cider vinegar
100 g jam sugar
1. Peel the rhubarb. Put the vinegar, water and rhubarb peels in a pot and boil for 20 minutes. Strain the stock. Put the stock, jam sugar and chopped rhubarb in the pot, boil for 20 minutes, cool.
White chocolate ganache
100 g of whipped cream
20 g of glucose
half a vanilla pod, opened and seeds scraped out
20 g of butter
220 g of white chocolate
1. Boil the cream, invert sugar and vanilla bean. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to season for 15 minutes.
2. Heat the mixture again and pour parts over the chocolate, mix until smooth. Add butter when the mixture is hand warm. Cool and put in a piping bag.
Gancia Asti, Italy (€13.59)
The sweet Italian sparkling wine Gancia is in place when you celebrate and you want softness, sweet fruitiness and a moderate alcohol percentage from a sparkling wine.
It is also an excellent sparkling wine for sweet treats and strawberry desserts.